President Obama plans to include 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants in his healthcare plan after the legislation has passed. His next step would be to have a comprehensive immigration plan (amnesty) passed by Congress, legalizing every illegal despite having no provisions for checking backgrounds.

These moves are taking place as a critical long term environmental problem is growing worse in the Southwestern United States. It is running out of water.

President Obama, speaking to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute:

“Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don’t simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken…That’s why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.”

His solution:

“If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all.” (Sure. Just like in 1986.)

It is an amnesty, opening the door to relatives and a possible surge of Mexicans heading north for the promised land. In addition, we already allow in close to 2 million immigrants each year, both legal and illegal.

And, as I keep reminding readers, the U.S. Census Bureau says that America will increase its population by nearly 100 million over the next 3 decades. Most of the new residents will be Hispanics from south of the border plus they have a habit of downloading a lot of babies. They are the reason why America will suffer the consequences of rapidly dwindling resources, especially water.

But you don’t hear the news media cover this story. For that matter, our elected officials in Congress and the White House won’t even comment on the topic. These new residents represent consumers and cheap labor for corporations as well as votes for politicians-votes from a Spanish-speaking demographic that does not want to assimilate or speak English. They also have a negative opinion of the European “gringos” who stole their land and they want it back. Sadly, our leaders are putting personal gain over their oath of office and their responsibility to America and its citizens.

According to Diana Hull, President of Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), “More than 80 percent of U.S. population growth will continue to be a direct result of immigration and births to immigrants. In California-where the population increases by a half million per year-that immigration component accounts for virtually 100 percent of the growth.” Meanwhile, American citizens have been fleeing California over the past two decades.

Ground zero for water shortages in our nation is the American Southwest, which is also the destination for many of these immigrants. The June 2009 USGCRP report describes the future for the region. A few of the points:

The arid region of the Southwest is projected to become drier in this century. There is emerging evidence that these changes are already underway. Deserts in the United States also are projected to expand to the north, east, and upward in elevation …

Water supplies in some areas of the Southwest are already becoming limited, and this trend towards scarcity is likely to be a harbinger of future water shortages.

The magnitude of temperature increases projected for the Southwest, particularly when combined with urban heat island effects for major cities such as Phoenix, Alburquerque, Las Vegas, and many California cities, represent significant stresses to health, electricity, and water supply in a region that already experiences very high summer temperatures.

There is a high likelihood that water shortages could limit power plant electricity production in many regions, projecting future water constraints on electricity production in thermal power plants for Arizona, Utah, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, California, Oregon, and Washington State by 2025.

Water is also an important source of hydroelectric power, and water is required for the large population in the region.

Reservoirs in the system,including the giant lakes Mead and Powell, were nearly full in 1999, with almost four times the annual flow of the river stored. By 2007, the system had lost approximately half of that storage after enduring the worst drought in 100 years of record keeping. Runoff was reduced due to low winter precipitation, and warm, dry, and windy springs that substantially reduced snowpack.

The Colorado River system, including the reservoirs in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, provide water and hydroelectric power for cities and farms in a large part of the southwest. “Lake Mead, which was created when Hoover Dam was built, provides 90 percent of Las Vegas’ water.”

Mark Cromer wrote “Crowded California is running out of Water”, July 17, 2009, in the Santa Monica Daily Press. Some excerpts:

“As California heads into high summer, those sweltering weeks that burn like a fever from mid-July into September, there is no indication that our state or federal leadership has yet to fully grasp the environmental catastrophe the Golden State now faces.”

“California’s water supplies continue to dwindle even as its population grows, with only half of the expected runoff from the Sierra snowpack materializing in 2007. By last year, just as Los Angeles County closed in on 10 million people, the Sierra runoff was only 40 percent of normal.

“Yet as our critical water supplies in California literally evaporate before our eyes, our elected officials tout more growth, increased immigration and an expanded consumer-driven economy with all the zeal of men and women cocktailing at a Prozac party.

“It is so politically incorrect to candidly assess the link between population growth (and the runaway development it fuels) and our water crisis that even much of academia has not only joined the party, but has actually cried for the band to play on.”

“This summer California stands at 40 million and is on track to hit 60 million water-drinking bodies by mid-century, or possibly sooner. We have progressively less water, but we’re growing people like there’s no tomorrow.”

David Sirota, December 19, 2008, “We Are All Las Vegans Now”:

Like most flights into Vegas, mine last week soared over a sinking Lake Mead. Visually, the white strip around the man-made reservoir is beautiful-the bright chalk line separating the blue water from the red-brown desert…But it is a harbinger of depletion. This water source for 22 million people is at its lowest level since the 1960s. Strained by the Southwest’s population explosion and by drought-accelerating climate change, the lake now stands a 50 percent chance of running dry by 2021, according to scientists.”

Tim Barnett and David Pierce, co-authors of the study and prediction above, also estimated that there is a 10 percent chance that Lake Mead could be dry by 2014 and a 50 percent chance that reservoir levels will drop too low to allow hydroelectric power generation by 2017.

“Today, we are at or beyond the sustainable limit of the Colorado system…The alternative to reasoned solutions to this coming water crisis is a major societal and economic disruption in the desert southwest; something that will affect each of us living in the region.”

This crisis would affect a large number of western urban and farming areas in the near future. Las Vegas, with no water, will be abandoned within 25 years, according to one prediction. And it won’t be alone. As a result, a large human migration would move east, spreading the misery and “unrest” across America.

Las Vegas could not exist without Lake Mead and the Colorado River system. If the lake is dry, the river doesn’t flow. There is no hydroelectric power, no water for drinking, no ice cubes, no air-conditioning. So abandoning Las Vegas or other cities in the region is not only a possibility but very likely.

Since our government has no intention of halting immigration, that slim chance to save the Southwest and our nation from catastrophe has disappeared. USNORTHCOM’s Army of the North, a multinational response force for North America, may have to increase the number of troops under its command.